The war between Israel and the terror group Hamas, which began after the latter’s barbaric atrocities against Israeli civilians on October 7, is also an information battle. Media of all types have been spreading propaganda meant to craft a false equivalence between the State of Israel and the terrorists who run Gaza. One of the more galling tactics used by pro-Palestinian activists, including many in the mainstream progressive movement, is to claim that Israel is conducting a genocide against the Palestinian people. This spurious allegation has been repeated by everyone from members of Congress to congressional staffers to Ivy League professors and students to foreign ministers and heads of state. But not only do these claims misapply the label of genocide, they have the situation exactly reversed: History shows that it is Israel’s enemies who harbor genocidal intent.
The term genocide was coined by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-Jewish lawyer (and ardent Zionist), in direct reference to Nazi mass killings then being carried out. In his 1944 book, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, Lemkin described the concept:
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